{"id":1130460,"date":"2026-08-04T20:14:39","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T20:14:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1130460\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T20:14:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T20:14:39","slug":"stormont-contributes-130000-to-moving-belfast-fleadh-visitors-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1130460\/","title":{"rendered":"Stormont contributes \u00a3130,000 to moving Belfast Fleadh visitors \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Department for Infrastructure<\/a> provided \u00a3130,000 in additional funding for public transport<\/a> during the all-Ireland Fleadh, with the money earmarked for late-night bus and rail services.<\/p>\n

It is understood that no additional funding was given for increased daytime capacity, on the days when passengers were left behind on platforms at Connolly Station in Dublin, at Hilden, Lisburn, and elsewhere as trains into Belfast filled up.<\/p>\n

The figure emerged as attendance counts released by Belfast One, the city\u2019s Business Improvement District, put the crowds at 175,000 on the opening day and 165,000 on day two.<\/p>\n

A DfI spokesperson said the department had allocated: \u201c\u00a3130,000 for additional late-night bus and rail services to support Fleadh Cheoil na h\u00c9ireann 2026.<\/p>\n

\"Mo<\/a>\"‘You’ve<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe additional services operated on Sunday 2 August and will again be in place from Thursday 6 August until Sunday 9 August to complement the wider transport and traffic management plans being put in place for the event.\u201d<\/p>\n

SDLP group leader on Belfast City Council, S\u00e9amas de Faoite said the attendance could \u201csoar past the one million visitors mark very easily.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said responsibility now rested with ministers to back the event in its second year, and pointed to night-time services as the clearest test of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s definitely an impetus now on Stormont to roll in behind this for the second year, particularly when it comes to things like public transport,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve made the case for a long time that more investment is required in public transport anyway, particularly in the night-time services.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to get the infrastructure minister and the other ministers recognising that this is a public service that\u2019s worth investing in and it\u2019s desperately needed. The Fleadh is just one element of proving that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Translink faced criticism over its handling of the opening weekend after passengers were turned away from full trains, with lengthy queues also forming for buses in Belfast city centre on Sunday evening as crowds made their way home after the opening ceremony.<\/p>\n

The operator has said that it is running enhanced timetables this week, and that it is using all available resources while monitoring demand.<\/p>\n

Passengers have been advised to allow extra time for journeys, to expect services to be busy and to plan ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Department for Infrastructure provided \u00a3130,000 in additional funding for public transport during the all-Ireland Fleadh, with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1130461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5011],"tags":[92995,304362,1144,83169,16,15],"class_list":["post-1130460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-northern-ireland","tag-dfi","tag-fleadh-cheoil-na-heireann-2026-belfast","tag-northern-ireland","tag-translink","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117039077831241238","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1130460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1130461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1130460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1130460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1130460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}